A pastor is causing a commotion in his Texas town – and possibly hurting with his non-profit status – because of a politically motivated church marquee.

The Church in the Valley marquee reads, “VOTE FOR THE MORMON, NOT THE MUSLIM! THE CAPITALIST, NOT THE COMMUNIST!”

The sign was an obvious reference to President Barack Obama, who conservatives say is a secret Muslim even though he says he is a Christian and attends church with his family. He said in an August interview with a religious magazine that it’s not his job to convince people he’s Christian. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

Pastor Ray Miller declined an interview with ABC affiliate KVUE but told the station the sign was his idea because he feels strongly about the election. He said this is not the first bold statement he has made on the marquee, which changes every week.

Since all churches and houses of worship are tax-exempt under federate law, they’re barred from participating in political campaign activity.

“They are permitted under the tax laws to engage in other political activities (e.g., distribute voter guides and invite candidates to speak at church functions) so long as such activity does not support or oppose a candidate,” a 2008 report on the subject reads.

As of 2002, however, the Internal Revenue Service reported that only two churches have ever lost non-profit status over campaign involvement.

WOO HOO, there’s a Muslim running for President. What’s his or her name, I might vote for them.

http://www.wmonline.com BuddhaShrink

Here’s some sad, recent, related statistics:

Percentage of Democracts who have an “unfavorable” opinion of Muslims: 29
Percentage of Republicans who do: 57

Harper’s Index
Harper’s Magazine November 2012

George Carty

It makes me laugh when US wingnuts portray Obama as being both a Muslim and a communist, because communists are militant atheists!

http://www.wmonline.com BuddhaShrink

How odd for a church to have such a hateful, Islamophobic sign. Perhaps this church should change its name to Church of the Loons.

“Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone.”
Thomas Jefferson

I think people would do well spending more time studying the Founding Fathers of the United States and less time listening to religious bigots.

Abdulmajid

Dear BuddahShrink, yes, of course all those islamophobic fiends are first and foremost racists and bigots. That’s an over 1000 year old tradition. I have the lyrics of a medieval song from the 13th century which refers to Muslims as “that ugly and bearded lot.” So it’s no surprise at all. These fascist, racist and xenophobic – and often ignorant but sometimes just plain evil – people are inhuman and nothing else.

Abdulmajid

I hate it when people who portray themselves as good Christians incite to hate. I hate their hypocrisy. So hating Muslims is being a good Christian. Being a fascist, a racist, a bigot, a xenophobe is being a good Christian. That’s what such people think, They call for genocide and give feeble justififcations like “wherever Muslims are majority they are horrible to Christians”. As events in the former Yugoslavia, and in Spain after the Reconquista show, quite the opposite is true. So, Christian Pakistani shot a couple of their own who had dared to convert to Islam. It also happens among Copts in Egypt. Yet all we hear in the news is the yap about Muslim “honor killings”. I’m just waiting for a Bosnian Serb family to shoot their son or daughter because they converted to Islam or married a Muslim. Even the Bosnian Serbs haven’t sunk so low – yet. Ah, if that came to pass it would be all hushed up, but if the opposite happened the islamophobes would yap over it and justify in the shrillest voice why the Bosniaks have to be turned into the Palestinians of Europe – a people without a country.
When I was a kid I was a good Catholic. I believed in the Message of the Messiah, peace be upon him. Yes, you have to love yor neighbors like your own. It is better to discuss things calmly and sometimes it is good to turn the other cheek. It is good to forgive one’s enemies because “they don’t know what they’rfe doing” BUT… even that young I realized that they practised the opposite of what they preached. I knew they had destroyed the Spanish Muslims through violence, terror and oppression. I knew that what is today Israel had a majority Arab population and now it hasn’t. When the war in Bosnia was served as a snuff movie on TV every evening from 1992 to 95 I realized what the Reconquista in Spain must have been like. And after the West stood by passively and let it happen, and when the Catholic Croats turned on the Bosniaks too and the Church remained silent I knew what my way was. I have found Islam to be a spiritual comfort. I’m glad to have joined it. Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that two wrongs make a right. That Osama picked Sept. 11th to bring down the Twin Towers as a symbol of capitalism and what they perceive as US aggression against the Muslims is inspired in that the Christian Bosnian Croats destroyed the Old Bridge (Stari Most) of 1566 because they saw it as a symbol of Islam which they had to destroy since they claim that part of the country for themselves. But Sept. 11th was not incited by the Bosniaks! They had nothing to do with it and that’s why the slander that Al Qaida is present in Bosnia and that Osama bin Laden had a Bosnian passport or ever was there, or that the attempt was planned and prepared there, as some islamophobes claim, incenses me because it is patently false and to use this falsehood as a justificatin to commit genocide against Muslims is beyond good an evil. But I hear calls to genocide against Muslims every day. I wonder if one day I will have to face what the Bosniaks of Srebrenica had. Before my wife divorced me I had the hope that if it ever came to that at least my in-laws in Morocco would take me in. Now I don’t have that option. Maybe someone in Libya or in Bosnia would be willing to welcome me if I ever must become a refugee from my own country. Of course in Bosnia I would be in exactly the same danger because it is only a matter of time until the anti-Muslim genocidals have another go at genocide. At least I was warmly welcomed last time I visited. So I can only pray that Allah give me strength to face death at the hands of my enemies, who have already decided upon it, with my head held high. Of course, should the Muslims prevail over their enemies things could turn out quite differently. I think it would lead to a decline of Islamophobia, for then Europe would see that it has to – and can – live with an independent and free Muslim nation in their midst. On the other side of the pond they would get the drift too.

http://www.wmonline.com BuddhaShrink

@CriticalDragon1177

Thank you, CriticalDragon1177. You are of course correct that many Islamophobes have, despite the facts, stated that Obama is a Muslim for a very long time now.

My brief statement above was intended to show the irrational nature of churches like the one mentioned in this post with the bigoted and disparaging sign: “Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim” and to point out that religious bigots are often racists as well (the Christian church that the Obama’s attended in Chicago was and is considered a “black church” led by an African American pastor).

That religious bigots are often racists as well became very clear to me when I noticed Islamophobic websites going after a black boy, Trayvon Martin, who had been killed, and defending his killer, George Zimmerman. David Horowitz, on his website, accused those protesting the lack of justice of being a “lynch mob.”

Neither Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman were/are Muslim but Islamophobic websites were taking sides; and not the black famiy’s side.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. I in no way wanted to take away from the clearly Islamophobic nature of the sign; only to to point to the fact that those responsible for the sign were most likely racists as well.

Xithurel

Look whose going to be losing their tax exemption.

Rights

I have reached a point where I am compelled to think that those who insist Obama is a Muslim must get their heads examined. And when a pastor insists on this lie, he must also explain to his congregants what would Jesus think of it.

Abbey

It’s become a serious crime being Muslim in USA. Very sad.

mindy1

Isn’t god supposed to love everyone except sinners?

http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold CriticalDragon1177

@BuddhaShrink

Yes, but even than there were some people claiming that Obama was a secret Muslim and that he only attended that church as cover.

http://www.wmonline.com BuddhaShrink

In 2008 they were railing against Obama’s Christian pastor.

Amago

At first, I actually thought it was a hoax. I think many people did too. But even if it was a hoax, we should realize that particular thought surfaced for a reason.